Deetee
by SuperMudz
Summary: Aka "Ghost", a StarCraft story. One-shot.
1. Chapter 1

"DEETEE" or "GHOST" by SuperMudz

* * *

_Chapter One_

KILLER

* * *

She was sixteen and already a killer.

Since twelve years old, like the rest of her regiment. She remembered the training, brutal, unrelenting. Daily, limits were pushed. Now it was more about intelligence, but the physical regimes were still important, but they had graduated much of it.

She was reading a comic on her bunk again, like she often was lately. The other recruits came in, taking off their gear from their round of training. She had already been. Aced it again, which was good. Her instructor was keeping her on the approved list. You didn't want to know what happened if you failed – but she never had. No-one opted out of being a ghost – so if you failed… you never heard back from them.

She wasn't supposed to have time to read anything but instruction manuals, but she found a way to sneak it here and there. As soon as she was old enough and found her first one, strange, wondrous thing, wandering lost in the underground training facility. It was at least forty years old, pale, leeched of colour from the time passed, but it was magical, entranced her.

"Deetee's imaginary boyfriend," one scoffed. She flipped a knife and put it in her back pocket.

Starfighters taking off in the distance, visible through the viewport. There was a war out there somewhere – but they were needed here, with the colonies. Insurgents were on the rise.

(*)

Then the others left, and she was by herself again.

She had some time to think, and her memories drifted back as she kept her station in the dark just like she was taught. When she was twelve, she had held a bear and cried.

Then the Zerg invaded. How to explain that?

Day two, they had to dissect some alien membranes. DeeTee always wondered how they obtained them so quickly. Not that there weren't possibilities.

(*)

After training, she returned to her bunk, alone.

Her hair was short and she had painted it green, but no-one could see that under her tactical helmet unless she pulled some of it loose. She understood the concept, but there was no-one to be pretty for. She studied herself in the mirror, wondering for a moment. Then moved on and finished packing in her rifle to storage lengths.

Their gear would be gone over with a bio-microscopic comb. Every piece of metal was heated and cleaned. Sometimes they had a bunch of barely more than civilians operate the machinery, but each ghost was expected to do their own equipment check. They'd be the first to notice if anything was more than a millimetre off.

And something was.

She studied the hair critically. She didn't know whose it was.

"DNA scanner online." It said.

And then she heard a sound, and spotted it. She cancelled the scan.

"A cat," she sighed in relief.

She didn't have time for books. But she read a comic, and she thought about other life sometimes, as she hooked in a knee and stared out at empty land through the one-way.

Dangerous, tactically, but she didn't mind. Didn't take a few risks then you wouldn't do a very good job. She wasn't sure what the ghost life expectancy was. She had never met an old ghost outside the training facility (and they were trainers, not real field agents), although there were rumours.

This was sort of an outpost for the real centre of ghost intelligence. The massive operations centre with its dozens of compound levels, research and development, incubation and sleep chambers, training rooms, cyber-intelligence systems, massive main-frames.

Torture. It wasn't called that, but it was. Legal, too. It was the only way to refine their ghost agents into the perfect killing weapons. She had killed kinds of people she didn't even want to know existed.

But in betwixt rage and beauty, there was still time to be human.

Somewhere out there, someone was writing more stories like these. Some place hard to get to, she imagined. As wide a gulf between that place and hers as between Koprulu and Earth. Too different.

She had committed no crime, but had been indentured into service since a child anyway. Keep the folks safe and happy. Keeps the dangerous psionic rogues away from the civilians, and give them merciless cold killers to keep them protected against the scary things.

Things like the Zerg, she supposed. The only things that might understand pain even more than she did.

(* * *)

She was on her next mission. Not training. The real thing. It was one or the other. An excursion always made her excited. She learned with every mission. She was getting out of that black shadow of a headquarters. That self-contained nuclear bomb they called a home.

She and two marines led the way into the structure. Abandoned radar outpost that had to be checked out.

She found a stash in the locker. All emotion left her face, and all that remained was the training. But when she left, the ancient pamphlets were in her pack hold. She never let the others see it. Just like they never saw the small toy bear she saved from the Gettyburg incident. Women and children, screaming and slaughtered.

She still remembered the eyes. A child half her own age. One that would never see the inside of a psi internment camp. But would also never see anything else now.

The treatments were as much for the trauma as anything, as she shivered and shuddered in the neuro tank, clad in nothing but a cellular-boost skin suit, bare feet exposed to rapidly altering temperatures. Her psychic neurology sensitive to every burst, receiving everything like a bad antenna until her mind was dulled by the cacophony.

Battlefield. Noise. Tanks. She burst the treads of two. This was a year ago. Marines moved up out of the trenches and found the resistance. Simple advantage of momentum, surprise and slightly superior positioning.

Deetee took out one herself, that was moving around the side. She had seen him handling a compression grenade. One of those could have disrupted the rank. Blown them off their feet and stance. She fired a round into the prominent war-head of a missile launcher one wielded. It wasn't clean, it took out several metres of the building with him, but it took care of the problem. She looked up and saw a better vantage point – about six feet up, and dangerous. She didn't know if she could make that leap but she'd try.

She made it. Just.

(*)

She moved at a crawl through the underbrush – the Zerg were near. Unfortunately the little critters seemed to be somewhat sensitive to those with psi talents. Although Command had just mentioned "ghosts" specifically, which was just perfect.

She didn't have "Spider"'s experience, quite, but she was trained, and as far as she knew, edged out most of her team-mates at a few particular things. She still knew how to wire an explosive though, and made the best use of them she could.

Tactical drones, she would have killed for a few of those at the moment (perhaps not a metaphor, but perhaps she wasn't that bloodthirsty either), but she wouldn't be trusted with remote intelligence for another year. Long range and short range, her mind kept thinking through it. You didn't engage with the Zerg hand-to-hand. And if any of those scythe-wielding hunters appeared, she would have to disappear.

So far, just keeping out of range of their most basic animal senses would have to do. The mud came up a few inches on her fore-arms and legs.

She shouldered the jet-pack and kept out of range, rising up to the escarpment that hugged the sky-scraping structures. Better vantage. With her cloak activated it was unlikely anyone could pick her off from that range either. She used an optical light-bender, and she sniped the next shooter before he could even turn to fire.

She sighted another one in the reflection of a building about five hundred metres away. She couldn't roll a grenade, but she had several atmospheric flight canisters, they could adjust up to a significant angle over a distance. Without direct line of sight, the explosive shells were a good option.

While they were distracted by the ground forces she had plenty of manoeuvring ability.

She jumped up another level, and took out two more targets from above their line of sight, like you were supposed to do.

A snake like thing slithered. She hadn't seen its classification before. For a moment she couldn't decide if it was a Zerg or native fauna she had never seen. But it was certainly creepy enough. She wouldn't take any chances if it appeared again.

Something was standing there. Someone. She felt a massive shock go through her, the shock of recognition. It didn't move, but even without a clear look, the way it stood, she knew she was looking at herself.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two_

OUTPOST

* * *

She was dropped off – part of a search squad to confirm zerg presence or nil in the outpost. They were getting into the barracks now. If the zerg were around, it was likely to be here. It was a huge, old, compound, with more corridors, sectors, hidden storage areas and depots and infantry racks than it knew what to do with. It was connected to the whole command structure. Dropships would land and take off here, and there were likely even a few research facilities inside that hadn't been announced on any report. She was familiar with the type – Confederacy being the paranoid conspiracy culture it was. Layers and double-layers of secrets, so effectively convoluted and shrouded in secrecy that even to this day, the Dominion was still uncovering more of their secret facilities and projects, things that shouldn't have existed. She would not be surprised if there were even a few contingency cells somewhere in operation to restore the Confederacy. Fat chance of that, though, Mengk knew everything they could dish out and more. She didn't know much else about the new Emperor, but everyone knew that.

There were about twenty marines, and three ghosts including her. They moved into the barracks.

(*)

She found cover in the comms room, and propped one leg up, her rifle leaned close at hand, while she contacted them.

"That's why we call them hydra," her contact told her over the radio once she made contact. "You find one, there's bound to be ten more."

It's remains were probably still sprawling and slicking over the bulwark, she shuddered. Hydralisks were the face of a soldier's worst fears. Their spines, worse than explosive gauss shards, sheared through marine armour without concern. They ignored the finest plating on starfighters. They got inside battlecruisers, and they hunted and slaughtered every personnel on board.

They detached in groups of threes. She got assigned to a marine for scouting. She actually did not feel good about it. She had looked at his face. If they encountered the Zerg, he was going to just die to keep them at bay while she got away. That's why she only got one escort. They both knew it, and that was the look she saw.

He shouldered his rifle. She saw he had packed extra grenades. She couldn't help but feel a moment's admiration for this unknown soldier. She wished it could be some other way, but she couldn't argue against orders. Ones keeping her alive. It was a hard thing to accept, even for her. And she knew death as much as anybody alive.

She paused. Maybe short of the ones that lived to see the inside of a zerg chrysalis. But even they didn't have the experience she had.

Lured by the thought, she left the marine behind, almost as if unconsciously – as if she never intended to. She saw another hydralisk, making down the corridor, evading the lights with a sickening and alarming ease, barely losing a single beat. That would be terrifying, she realised. No wonder marines would be caught so off-guard.

She risked the exposure as it neared the marine's position – he was taking the attention. She fired a round, which entered just behind it's bullet-proof plating.

Every single one of the 8mm explosive shards from that over-sized cannon had simply ricocheted or blasted harmlessly off that carapace – but just under the head, the tissue was still soft enough for a boring round. She felt the shaky rush of success. The marine wouldn't notice, one of those raw emotions they trained you to suppress, but it wasn't every day you did something like that. She had just saved the man's life.

"You made good bait. Let's get back."

She managed to convince him to return. She didn't want to explore alone, but she didn't want to keep pulling her escort down into obvious ambush territory, so they turned back – wondering what the Zerg would do next. Their silence was eerie. It's as if they were thinking too.

The lack of zerg rushing out of the blackness of those corridors like she expected… it was somewhat disturbing.

She checked the next locker.

Marines and their… cheese-cake… she sighed. She'd rather go for a burger herself. Couldn't remember the last time she had one of those.

She slammed the locker shut and flipped through the cards, checking them rapidly with mnemonic memory. Her cyber implant slowed it down half a beat in delay and replay, triggering by a psi wire, like a nerve, that traced just above her eyebrow. It was primarily used in combat, rechecking enemy positions, little things that you miss – anything that your tele-tracker didn't automatically pick up.

It took a while to learn how to use it habitually and without effort.

She found one more stash. In the command centre. Searched through it. Bubble-gum, she sighed. And cards. Nothing to die over.

The fighting lasted several days. After it was done, she boarded the transport. The men were all men, old or at the least grown. Twenty, thirty, forty. Many of them were scarred with lives defined solely by battle now, their memories wiped away. Their eyes weren't cold, they were dead or dull. And yet it was her they were afraid of.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter Three_

MISSION

* * *

The cybernetic things came floating closer. Umojan seeker droids. They were smart too. Umojans might have been the only ones that invented something close to the original artificial intelligences and technologies Earth had sent with them (their convicted, exiled ancestors) out to this distant space they called home.

Spider-mines, they were dangerous. Even a ghost dreaded hearing that tell-tale scuttle that alerted them to only a few seconds to act before being blown to bits.

Smart little buggers, and their construction was a secret, probably kept on Tarsonis somewhere (at least it was). It was a general suspicion that there was a secret cyber-ware facility that used to be there, where all kinds of untoward things happened, but who knew anymore, after it was wiped out by the Zerg.

Usually such things were connected to ghost facilities but it was a mystery to her. She had deprogrammed a live spider-mine once (an odd experience), but had never seen these rumoured cyborgs, except for the beautiful old thing in the command centre, their local adjutant (of a sort, anyway). That lady (whatever she was) was the only one that seemed to have time for the girls, even shared jokes sometimes, although it could be hard to tell.

She learned a lot in the course of this mission. The Umojans were an advanced rival for their program, and learning to combat their weapons was a priority. She did well.

(*)

The dropship took her away. It wasn't normally a good idea to have one mission after the other so quickly, and she had several – but someone was calling the shots, and she just had to follow orders.

The next destination was a wasteland. A city destroyed by bombs as the Zerg had invaded it. It had stopped them successfully, but there were no survivors on either side now.

She entered the security station. There were no human occupants, but she unleashed the dog that was still leashed there, looking like it's food dispenser had expired several days ago. The dog was released, and stay attentive to her quite happily. Perhaps one exception then.

"Who's a good puppy?" she ruffled it's fur. And then she picked up the rifle and carried on. The dog followed her.

The first shack was empty. As was the munitions depot attached to it. She found a few clips, but all the rounds her mags would accept were substandard anyway. She left them, she had plenty. A good agent tallied the cost from beginning to end and kept herself stream-lined.

Besides, she knew where they were if she needed them.

The dog scampered away. She felt a momentary pang. She hated the thought of it becoming lost and infested. She wasn't supposed to be sentimental about it – but it was one of the few things she could get away with. She didn't want to see it get eviscerated either if she couldn't handle the Zerg. Let alone herself, she supposed. And also the sudden loss of company.

Would the Zerg infest native fauna? She didn't know. She heard they wiped out the entire ecologies of the worlds they attacked, but she didn't know what happened to the animals. The Zerg were supposedly once animals, according to the scientists and so-called experts.

They infested humans. She knew that. Even she felt a shiver. Mental calculations aside, she was still human. She leapt a ten foot span, mechanical power-lifts working in the soles of her combat boots, and made it to an inclined roof, sheltered by the various weather vanes. She'd get a good spotting location from here as long as she wasn't spotted herself.

None of those flying bugs, that would have made the whole thing moot.

"Call in a marine squad for a clean-up," she radioed. This whole location was a 'fest site. Be easier just to get flamethrowers on it. Or a good clean napalm bomb.

(*)

One other. A big eyed thing, only eleven, but her psi rating was off the charts. She had been specially selected, probably would be some commander's personal assassin. The Psi Corps could be pretty self-involved, but it still had ties to the rest of the military command.

The girl never spoke, no matter what Deetee asked. They shared the rapport of being psi-talents, but that would only go so far without some kind of probing. And that was a breach of privacy she wouldn't commit. She wondered, though. Was there some kind of trauma that accounted for her being so withdrawn? Ghosts were all recruited the same way. Was it her unusual power? Was she not included with the rest of the program?

Perhaps that's just how she was, and the training had nothing to do with it. She escorted her to the pad, noticing how her eyes seemed to absorb everything around her.

There was an ambush at the pad. It was quickly over.

Afterwards, she wondered what would happen to the girl. People didn't just opt out of the ghost program, and her talents were what were sought after. Perhaps she would get personal trainers. Perhaps there was another corps out there, kept secret. Perhaps the psi corps even had secrets amongst itself.

Maybe she would find out one day. She thought about her ambitions.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter Four_

THE KILL

* * *

1300 hours.

The spaceport was still active, and she watch the various civilians and military moving in and out sporadically. A Vershawk took off and departed, probably to join its space transport somewhere else on this barren ball of a world.

"Big wide galaxy out there," she said to the terminal.

(*)

She checked the op. She had one target, but it was difficult to get to. A rogue Umojan agent, of sorts. There were a few of them, unreliable people, infiltrating the Dominion (as it was now), and seeding resistance from within.

Security was good, too. But she had more than sufficient skill. She activated the camouflage and entered the perimeter. She decided a close kill was the best.

She moved through the sub-section, easily avoiding the security cameras. She switched them off easily with a micro-oped. It was simple, but effective enough for a quick job like this. Whether anyone suspected anything or not, it wouldn't make a difference in enough time.

She was surrounded by tubes. Their research facility of some kind, she was given some scanty specs. Biological containment units that scientists used to store specimens. These ones were set for human use.

Their troops? She wondered, approaching. All the equipment indicated a rogue psionic operation of some kind. No psychic troopers yet, but perhaps they were…

She examined them. They were just infants! Some strange sort of experiment going on here.

She touched the glass of one. She could… sense something… within. She smiled. The infant was happy, apparently, no idea what was going on.

She had never heard of this before. Ghosts were found and recruited while children, psi talent usually only manifested after a few years. But if these infants had psi sensitivity… if they were part of some genetic experiment… That must be why they were here. Someone was trying to genetically control and create psionic soldiers. Some kind of cloning process, she guessed.

Trying to cultivate them before their psionic abilities even began. Although, it was hard to say, even infants could have some sensitivity to it – sometimes when they would be ghosts or not. The mutant strain was very rare, but it existed out here – she was one of the few. Earth had culled all of its own population, presumably successfully.

Koprulu was the only place that people like her could exist and survive, even if it was as part of some government program for assassins.

She knew it wasn't normal, wasn't what most children had to live with, but it was her life, and she had talents few possessed. A trade, she supposed. She was needed. They all were.

A tiny surge at the back of her neck told her her loyalty indoctrination was "paying attention" as she liked to term it, but she could shut that off any time she wanted. A trick she had learned early.

"So much life yet to live, huh?" she said to no-one in particular. The air, maybe, if it remembered such things. Children weren't supposed to think like that, but she did. She did ever since she was young.

Her psychic ability had been strange lately. Even more so after meeting the girl. It was strange how she remembered those eyes so well. Even with her training, she remembered them unusually. Perhaps this was just another stage of her development, she wouldn't know. They kept many secrets from them, even the adults to the still-growing.

You were expected to think and act like a killer and a loyal agent. She had never met an adult ghost who didn't look like he or she wouldn't have cut her throat on half-an-order. She remembered their eyes too – chilling because they reflected her own, but years from now.

Even though one gave her a slice of cake once. They were the only people you could trust, and yet you had to trust no-one.

It could be a hostile universe, but ghosts above all were prepared for it.

There were ghosts you admired. But you couldn't get close to anyone if you could help it. Friends, but no-one you depended on. The Corps itself was all they could rely on. The impartial bastion of peace and justice and order. Human order.

There were robotic devices patrolling the halls, their optic lenses sweeping the area with micro-aluminate sensors. She avoided them easily – even a first year agent could deal with those. Their mechanical devices weren't a match for her finely honed instincts, those "ghost senses" of her own.

She hid behind the crate until the two lumbering armour-booted marines passed. She was small, she kept out of sight easily. One paused to sweep a light back and forth for a moment, but it was nowhere near her position. A slight sensitivity, maybe? Not high enough to be registered by a psi sweep, but just enough to react that something was out of place? Animals occasionally registered that kind of sensitivity, and psychics were a mutant strain that existed in humanity out here. Marines were humans too, even if they were neurologically stripped down into walking steroids with guns.

Everyone used them. They even put up their guns for security on places like this, colonial administration and the like. All the colony magistrates had their own local forces in place to combat terrorism or other problems, police the populace if there were problems. Didn't see many soldiers outside of armour anymore. Pilots, sure – vultures were a common trick on the outer colonies.

Marine armour was cheap enough, at least compared to the technology that went into ghost HEV suits.

The kill.

He entered the room. She knew he hadn't sensed him. Two shots put him down. She had already done the recon and risk assessment, she felt she could make an escape if there was a hidden alarm she wasn't aware of.

But nothing happened. The sound of the suppressed gunshots wouldn't have alerted a mouse, and apparently no internal alarm system either. Close range enough. Usually the knife was surer, but she didn't want to move from her position. No surprises. And she didn't miss.

She activated the coffee dispenser. She didn't plan to drink any, but the hot water would be good.

She knew a girl that drew dragons, once. Sometimes they were encouraged to develop those skills, but she did it for fun. She had died when DeeTee was just thirteen. She never forgot, though.

She used his DNA scan to activate the secret computer stashed in his office, the neural imprint reader just flashing once in compliance. She deactivated and confused the security screens – the marine squads would already be ready to move in, as soon as they got her signal. She sent it.

She picked up the comic, and crossed her legs on the table, next to the man and his pooling blood. Soon, she'd join the convent to space, there was a war out there, and they needed soldiers. Maybe she'd get a new name.

They found her reading the comic when they arrived.


	5. Epilogue

EPILOGUE

He had been left alone. He had long forgotten the young ghost called DeeTee. Left alone in the underground of the not-completely abandoned facility, the Zerg had hunted him. He could not outrun them forever. Then he rose anew.

He could feel it cracking open his chest, and wriggling inside. The thing that killed him.

He felt the writhing heat inside him. He was it. One with the Swarm. The sounds in his mind dulled and were enveloped with something new, the sound of the Swarm. He moved, like a puppet, jerkily, by the will of the Swarm. He thought no more, yet he spoke, and uttered sounds with some part of his body.

He saw the fear and remembered it. He wasn't sure what his body was emitting but he did it again, and again. Then an urgent need overcame him and then he knew no more.

Far away, an overlord shuddered. One of its kind had died.

THE END


End file.
